Tag Archives: merry-go-rounds

During his unfortunately short lifetime, John Lennon had to deal with a lot of guilt. Some of it was due to the break-up of his personal and working relationship with Paul McCartney. But for a time, the public viewed his relationship with Yoko Ono as the likely cause of the Beatles’ dissolution (in retrospect, there were other factors involved). It finally arrived at the point where John felt compelled to sing, “I don’t believe in Beatles/ I just believe in me/ Yoko and me/ and that’s reality.”

It may seem odd, but a book reviewer is sometimes affected with guilt. This is especially true after spending hours and days reading a novel, a memoir, a nonfiction account or a survey book and finding it a disappointment. You might not think so, but most reviewers would love to just write positive reviews. Except that in the real world, writing exclusively positive reviews just would not reflect reality.

So the books that don’t meet the reviewer’s high expectations must be documented with a dreaded negative review. And here is where the guilt comes in… As the reviewer begins to draft a not-so-positive review, he/she begins to wonder if he/she did something wrong or miss the point? Is it somehow my fault that I didn’t like it? It’s an odd question but it’s one that I find me asking myself. Other reviewers that I talk to ask themselves the same question. Regardless, it’s a thought that must quickly be put aside.

Each of us, after all, is providing only one perspective, one that each review reader (and author) is free to accept or reject. Talk to four or more people about the Beatles, for example, and you’re likely to hear all of the following: “John was my favorite.” “I was always a Paul fan.” “I always loved George.” “Ringo was my guy.” If you were a Paul McCartney fan, you didn’t wonder if it was somehow your fault that John wasn’t your cup of tea.

When I talk to people about music, I get a sense of honest straight forwardness about one’s opinions. You may know that I love Van Morrison but have no problem in telling me that he is not someone you listen to. Why should it be different with literature, with books, with popular fiction? I think it’s because many of us grew up seeing academic standards applied to literature that were not applied to modern music. There was a sense that opinions about books were more formal, more standardized; therefore, there should be a consensus as to whether a particular book was “good” or “bad.”

Of course, all that has changed with the advent of the internet and with the more traditional style reviews (especially those printed on paper) moving into the background. We’re entering the new world where, it might be said, we’re all “free to be you and me.” So your opinion about a book is just as good, as valuable, as mine and vice-versa. We’ve entered a zone where everything in life is, as one New York City newspaper observed, both large and small all at once.

So when, for a moment, the feeling of guilt crops up because you love something that other people don’t – or fail to admire a book that others may – it’s time to move past that moment and accept that you simply feel what you feel. You think what you think and this is fine. You get to judge what you want and need to judge, and don’t ever believe those who tell you that you “shouldn’t judge things.” Everyone judges everything in life almost every minute of the day, but only some admit to it. Book reviewers, by necessity and by role, must admit to it.

And John Lennon offered us some valuable advice – in the song “Watching the Wheels” – as to what to do once we’ve boarded the merry-go-round of guilt… Get off of it. “I just had to let it go.” We just need to let it go.

Joseph Arellano

One in a continuing series of articles. Starting Over: The Making of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy by author-musician Ken Sharp was published by MTV Books.